Monday 28 February 2005
49th session of the Commission of the Status of Women (CSW) opens at the United Nations Headquarters in New York by Sharon Bhagwan Rolls
femLINKpacific:
Media Initiatives for Women / AMARC-WIN*
fem’TALK from New York: #2
Lobby and Advocacy Tools for 1325
This
is a story about a new red book which I will be using as we try to influence
regional peace and security processes in our pacific island region.
I
am talking about “Women Taking Action Locally and Globally – Beijing Plus
10” which looks specifically at current issues relating to Section E, Women
and Armed Conflict in the Beijing Platform for Action, a lobby document which
has arrived in time for “Beijing Plus 10” or the 49th Commission
of the Status of Women report which began at the United Nations Headquarters in
New York today (28 February).
Produced
as an initiative of the Centre for Refugee Research of the University of New
South Wales and edited by Carol Shaw, the lobby document takes note of some of
the gains in the area of women’s increasing participation in peace-building
which have been achieved since the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995.
High
on the list of the achievements of course is the adoption of UN Security Council
Resolution 1325, in October 2000, which was a watershed in the evolution of the
international women’s rights and peace and security issues. (I had the
privilege to be in the presence of Sanam Anderlini in Washington last week.
Anderlini, also a member of the Inclusive Security: Women Waging Peace network
was one of the key advocates and drafters of the resolution.)
So,
we have “1325” and we have women in our Pacific region who have assisted in
the disarmament process in our region, who have participated in the Truth and
Reconciliation in Timor Leste, who have undertaken initial interventions with
the military sector, such as the women of the ‘Blue Ribbon Peace Vigil” in
2000.
However,
despite these contributions and despite many of the commitments made in the
Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA) and Beijing plus 5 outcome documents (B+5 OD)
have not been fully implemented or even addressed.
In
fact, many countries fail to fully utilise “1325” to not only protect women
in conflict and post conflict situations from violence, especially sexual
violence, and to bring perpetrators of such crimes to justice, but to also
provide the urgent support to ensure women are involved in the long term
decision making for building peace with justice, and also curtailing any chance
of the resurgence of violence.
These
were exactly the thoughts of Noeleen Heyzer, the Executive Director of UNIFEM
highlighted yesterday at a meeting of Commonwealth member countries (27
February): “We all worked so hard to bring about 1325, again we need to make
sure it gets implemented.”
Heyzer
challenged Commonwealth delegates here in New York for Beijing Plus 10, meeting
for the first time since the 7th Commonwealth Women’s Affairs
Ministers Meeting (7WAMM) in Nadi last year that there is a need for stronger
partnership, not just women at the table and having a peace agreement but also
having women involved at all stages of reconstruction. This will be critical for
governments to take into account, as they also prepare to incorporate the
Commonwealth Gender Plan of Action (2005 – 2015), which has incorporated the
language of “1325” in the commitments to Gender, Democracy and Peace.
This
is why I am also excited about this handbook, because Pacific governments are
also now preparing to input their
national perspectives into the Pacific Plan, and I am not too sure how many of
them realise the existence of “1325” so this red handbook is a valuable tool
for anyone with an interest in engendering the regional security environment.
This booklet contains a summary of the major issues of concern identified by women’s NGOs who participated at the Asia Pacific Regional NGO Symposium in preparation for Beijing Plus 10, which was held in Thailand in July 2004. So the recommendations are based on very real experiences and contributions of women peace-builders, and for those of us who were not there, this is a document on which we can build on when addressing:
- violence and systematised sexual violence against women and girls
- breaches of international humanitarian and human rights law
- demilitarisation
- refugees and internally displaced persons
- women in peace-building
After summarising the mains areas of concern, the booklet then links the issues with the various conventions and outcome documents since the BPFA.
“Women
Taking Action Locally and Globally – Beijing+10” is published by ANCORW
Cooperative Limited, for more information email: c.shaw@unsw.edu.au
ends/SBr/femLINKpacific/280205
